"The Secret Economic History of the World" with Pulitzer finalist Sven Beckert
Is faith in our economic system cracking up?
From Mayor Mamdani's win to Elon's trillion-dollar payday, from Instagram infuluencers embracing communism to Bernie and AOC, from Trump's tariffs to Chinese communism. Critiques abound of the neoliberal order that has dominated the past half century.
But those assumptions - not just about policies, like free trade and low taxes, but about the very structure of we live our lives, how we produce stuff, and get stuff; assumptions like the existence of money and markets and wages - are not inescapable facts of reality. They evolved, over the course of the last thousand years. They made us very rich. And they could've been otherwise.
Professor Sven Beckert is a professor of history at Harvard University and one of the world's leading historians of capitalism. He's not a free-market cheerleader, not a libertarian economist defending unfettered capitalism. He's a historian who studies how, in the real world, violence, coercion and empire were foundational to capitalism's rise... but how capitalism remains the indispensable system that made you richer than most people who ever lived.
Beckert got his PhD in history from Columbia University and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2014. His new book is Capitalism: A Global History, and he joined Josh to shed light on what capitalism is, how it came about, and how might we re-anchor capitalism in moral and ecological limits... without extinguishing the creativity that has made it the most productive engine of all time.
Go to https://surfshark.com/joshs or use code JOSHS at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN!
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1:14:37
Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Refugees, Fossil Fuels & the fate of Western Civilisation
Tony Abbott was the 28th Prime Minister of Australia. Here, he visits Josh for an Uncomfortable Conversation about his government’s policy of “turning back” asylum-seeker boats; about climate change (as PM, he abolished Australia’s short-lived tax on carbon); and about his view of the historical treatment of First Nations Australians.
Josh and Tony wrestle with the challenges facing the U.K. and the U.S. from right-wing populism, illegal immigration, multiculturalism, and the fate of Western democracy.
His new book is “Australia: A History“.
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1:30:54
"Obama, Trump & the Great American Contradiction" with Pulitzer-Prize-winner Paul Starr
The difference between America's last two consequential presidents (sorry, Joe) couldn't be starker. How did the same country - sometimes even the same voters - endorse an urbane, professorial, hopey-changey Black man and a foul-mouthed, regressive clown? Is there some deep American contradiction that explains them both?
That's the claim of Paul Starr, a Pulitzer-winner who co-founded the iconic magazine The American Prospect. He worked in the Clinton administration and is now a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University.
Starr's new book is "American Contradiction: Revolution and Revenge from the 1950s to Now". He joined Josh to explain how, from MLK to Nixon to Gingrich to NAFTA to tariffs to wokeness, we find ourselves in the latest cycle of a grand American battle between revenge, fear and freedom.
Go to https://surfshark.com/joshs or use code JOSHS at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN!
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1:22:10
"The Case for American Power" with Shadi Hamid
The left has become increasingly uncomfortable about arguing for the moral superiority of the United States, let alone for the exercise of American dominance around the world. But is the American Empire something which even left-wingers should, in fact, fight for? Shadi Hamid is a columnist at The Washington Post who opposed the Iraq War and supported Bernie Sanders. An Arab-Muslim American, he lived in Jordan on a Fulbright Scholarship and got his PhD in political science from Oxford University. He's not your average neo-conservative. Shadi and Josh debate American influence, American decline, the Gaza War, democracies, dictatorships, China, Russia, Ukraine, Trump, and the future of the American Empire. Go to https://surfshark.com/joshs or use code JOSHS at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN!
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“Have We Got Morality Backwards? The Case Against Utilitarianism” with Bo Winegard
What does it mean to do the right thing, and how do we know when we’re doing wrong? Is it ever okay to lie? To exact vengeance? To eat meat? To abort a foetus? To pamper your kids when that money could save a poor child's life overseas? All of our most uncomfortable conversations stem, at their heart, from a conflict about what we ought to do. And the basis of our modern morality, in secular Western culture at least, is utilitarianism: the pursuit of the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Its most important living advocate, Peter Singer, has shaped how generations think about ethics, from animal rights to abortion, foreign aid, euthanasia, religion and more. But what if your utilitarian assumptions are wrong? "Spectacularly and extravagantly wrong", in the words of today's guest? Bo Winegard is a social psychologist whose essay, Against Singerism, is an audacious critique of our basic moral framework. Josh and Bo unpack the appeal and limits of utilitarianism, the traps of moral absolutism, and what it means to lead a good life. If "the greatest good" isn't the ultimate moral goal, then... what is?
The world has never been more connected. Yet never more divided. We yell at each other from inside our echo chambers. But change doesn’t happen inside an echo chamber. It’s time to get out, to stretch our legs, to step on some land mines. It's time to have an uncomfortable conversation with Josh Szeps.
A DM Podcast
UK